


White Tea and Black Umbrellas

by Jasminalaine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Because I stopped watching after that, F/M, Seasons 1-3 Only
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2018-11-09 12:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11104875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasminalaine/pseuds/Jasminalaine
Summary: In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the White Rabbit mistakes Alice for Mary Ann, his (we assume) housekeeper. We never meet her but she's my favorite. And if she had been transported to Storybrooke with the rest...this is how it would go. Archie/OC pairing because I'm a sucker for a red-head.  Belle/Gold because I will go down with that ship. Follows Seasons 1-3.Parts of this originally appeared on fanfiction.net





	1. Late & Later Still

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. Mary Ann/Mercy Harlow is my creation (with an obvious nod to Lewis Carroll). Any scenes/characters lifted from OUAT are not mine. Mwah!

I was late.

The clock tower still said 8:15. It always said 8:15. I don’t know why I bothered looking up. It wasn’t as if this was my first day walking up this street…or was it? I was starting to get a headache but I left my little bottle of aspirin in my purse, next to my keys and my wallet, all now nicely locked in my car, parked in the drugstore parking lot awaiting a visit from AAA or a locksmith. If I had my phone, or if that damn clock tower would ever start ticking away the hours like it was supposed to, I might have an idea of the time. All I knew, as I half-sprinted down Storybrooke’s main street was that I was late, late, late.

_Oh God_ , I thought in my head, _Now where have I heard that before?_

My whole morning had been ruined by a feeling—a vague, unsettling fog of uneasiness. I woke up early and left my apartment by 7:30 exactly, thinking that maybe today I would have it together and get to work on time and make a glorious success out of my patched-together life. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Etc. 

But at 7:30, I still had time to spare. I stopped by the drugstore thinking I’d pick up some nylons and a pair of white gloves. It was all very innocent errand-running.

That’s where the trouble started. I don’t wear white gloves. I certainly don’t need white gloves. And yet I was compelled to buy them and realized I’d been thinking about white gloves most of the morning. I’d woken up with the idea firmly planted in my hazy, harried mind. But why? And why couldn’t I shake the feeling? Did I go out drinking last night? I couldn’t remember. Everything from the day before was a shoddy blur. As if it were an ink and pencil drawing that the artist had taken a heavy-handed razor to.

_Ughhh._ My head pounded away. Tea would make me feel better, but I had no time for that nonsense.

So I bought the nylons but forgot the gloves. Just as well, since the drugstore clerk would have sneezed all over them. His allergies are getting worse—he should think about seeing a specialist. I told him to keep the change for the nylons and walked out to my car. I threw the nylons and my purse in the passenger seat before remembering the gloves. And since I wasn’t able to shake the annoying bit of insanity buzzing away in my head (flickering on and off like a bad light bulb), I was further compelled to walk back in and get the damn things. 

As soon as I shut the car door, I swore. I have a habit of swearing at every turn lately. But this was warranted. I heard the lock go automatically—and there was my pretty, red leather purse sitting in the front seat with my keys, wallet, phone and aspirin. I tried every door. Twice. I even tried the trunk. All locked. _Damn, damn, damn._

And that’s why I was now sprinting down Main Street, trying to make it to the hospital before my 9 am shift started and Dr. Whale decided to hire a new RN. Or worse, decided to call me out on my chronic inability to be on time yet again and not so suavely turn our whole interaction into some good old-fashioned pseudo-sexual harassment in the workplace. Some days I could handle it—whatever, I mean it’s not as if I haven’t dealt with it before. I’m attractive in my own cold, British way and my thirty-two year old figure is still slender with all the appropriate curves. Besides, I typically arrive to work in skirts and knee-high boots, with my long, black hair down and wild around my makeup-less, but apparently symmetrical-enough, face. Men like that sort of thing. 

Maybe I should be flattered. It’s not like I get out much these days. When you can’t shake the feeling that your life is in a shambles (or the nagging suspicion that, well, you might be losing your mind completely), you tend to stay home on Saturday nights. Usually watching marathons of _House_ and yelling at the doctors on the screen to stop spouting utter nonsense. 

But yes, some days, I could smack that smarmy doctor right across his conceited, vain face. So if I could avoid giving him an excuse to chat me up this morning, there was a chance the day might still turn out to be successful-ish. 

I don’t know why I think these thoughts. It just invites the universe to throw a glass of water in my face. I cut the corner around Granny’s too fast and almost tripped over the happy, speckled Dalmatian coming from the other direction. 

I was moving too fast to stop. I took a quick step to avoid the dog and not-so-gracefully tripped on the dog’s leash instead. I toppled over like a brand new sapling in a strong breeze.

“Whoa, there!” Archie was already reaching down and helping me up, his strong grasp lifting me from the sidewalk. “Mercy?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I muttered, letting him pull me up. The tweed on the arms of his jacket scratched a little against my hands and wrists but ironically, it was a comforting sensation. Real. Unlike the haziness, the vagueness, the rushing thought plaguing me for the last however many hours, that I was eternally in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I regained my footing for half a second before a shooting pain in my right ankle made cringe and waver. I would have crumpled back to the ground if Archie hadn’t taken my arm again and kept me steady. “Are you okay?” he asked, concerned.

“Ow,” I managed, trying the ankle again. I picked it up almost immediately and held fast to Archie and his scratchy tweed jacket, swearing yet again, “Damn it all.”

“Your ankle?” he wondered and I nodded. He continued, “What are you running from?”

“Running to. Not from.” I was a little out of breath and just hit the main points. “Late. Locked keys in car. Shift starts—at nine.” I took a deep breath that came out like a sigh of resignation. Balancing on my good ankle, I brushed gravel and street dirt off my skirt, legs and forearms.

“Well, you’re not going to make it now,” Archie glanced at his wristwatch and gave me a little half-smile of sympathy. It was a disarming gesture, a tool of his trade and actually made me feel a little better. He was right, obviously. Might as well accept defeat. The morning had turned out bad—plain and simple. Time to look forward to what had to be a better afternoon. 

_Or not._ The blazing pain in my ankle promised that too would be stretch.

I grimaced. I couldn’t help it. Archie shifted Pongo’s leash and his black umbrella to one hand and took a firmer hold of me, looping the free arm around my waist and gesturing towards Granny’s with the tip of that old umbrella.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get you off that ankle.”

I nodded silently and let him lead me to one of the outside tables. I sat down heavily in the nearest of the white, plastic chairs and Archie took the seat beside me. Pongo came over to me and laid his head in my lap, chocolate-brown eyes looking up at me, brimming with that true, genuine brand of unconditional love that only animals can seem to manage.

“Oh, Pongo,” I met the dog’s stare, rubbing him behind the ears affectionately. “Sorry I tripped over you, darling. Hasn’t been my morning.”

“It’s still early,” Archie mentioned, as he pulled his chair closer to mine. He bent down and took a closer look at the ankle, his gentle hands running over the tender skin, massaging it, probing for broken bones. His hands were warm and his touch was kind, which was natural considering his personality.

“Does this hurt?” He moved the ankle up and down cautiously. I nodded, biting back some stray tears of pain. I didn’t deserve to cry—not with my own stupidity to blame.

“But I can move it,” I answered, adding, “Feels like a sprain.”

“You’re the nurse,” he conceded, smiling again. He finished his ministrations and sat back in his chair. Pongo settled between us. “So not your morning? Do you want to talk about it?”

I gave a little laugh of amusement, despite the pain in my ankle. “Dr. Hopper,” I said, with facetious formality, giving him a look that said tread lightly. “Isn’t it a little early for psychoanalysis?”

“Never too early to talk about what’s bothering us, Mercy.” He forged ahead, too empathetic for his own good.

“Nothing’s bothering me…except that I’m late. Again.” 

“Nothing?” he prodded.

“No, nothing,” I answered firmly, wondering why and how he was so adept at reading my face. It was mildly frustrating and I felt quite exposed.

“Mercy…” His sky blue eyes met my sea green ones and would pry secrets from my soul if I let them.

“I mean it, Archie. Stop it,” I replied sharply, before immediately taking it back. “Sorry,” I offered lamely, reaching down and rubbing my ankle. God, it hurt. I almost asked Archie to massage it a little more, but thought better of it. It’s just plain rude to ask a favor of someone you just snapped at. Besides, I was mad at him—insinuating that I had deeper issues, that this wasn’t just a miscalculation in taking a corner too fast.

I sighed again. I was doing that a lot this morning. But who was I kidding? I woke up this morning, convinced that I needed to buy a pair of white gloves for…well, someone. Nothing felt right. Everything was out of place. I could barely remember yesterday. Today was a complete disaster. Everything had been off since…I had no idea. But it was off. I almost asked Archie if he felt it too. Sometimes I swear he did, with his sympathetic smiles and soul-piercing blue eyes—but I couldn’t. Not yet. If I was crazy, I’d rather keep it to myself for now. Archie, as always, let me be. He knew me well enough. The first time we met, it was as if he could read my thoughts and I—wait. When did we first meet? And where? 

I remembered…a field? Larkspur and violets and sunset, maybe? Everything bathed in warm gold and soft orange. Smell of crisp apples and mulled wine…

“I’m getting a cup of coffee. You want something?—hot tea, right?” Archie handed me Pongo’s leash as he rose from him chair, his hand lingering on my shoulder for just a moment before he walked into Granny’s. He didn’t wait for my response, didn’t need to. He turned back once before he went inside, “And I’ll give you a ride over to the hospital, so don’t worry about being late.”

“Thanks, Archie,” I answered his smile with one of my own. He was generous with smiles and deserved one back. He ducked into Granny’s as I scratched Pongo’s chin and behind his ears a few more times. The dog wagged his tail happily and nuzzled his head against my thigh. The smile on my face didn’t linger there for long and what took its place was a preoccupied look of dismal distraction, I’m sure. 

Why couldn’t I remember meeting Archie?

*


	2. Wednesdays & White Rabbits

_Wonderland_

Mary Ann couldn’t find his damn gloves. She’d been looking for hours and he’d be back soon, in a rush and demanding the gloves. He didn’t like to be kept waiting. His time, of course, was unconditionally precious. As if he were the only being in all of existence that had a deadline to meet. Alone in the house, Mary Ann rolled her eyes and contemplated murderous thoughts, casually.

She threw open cupboards and pried up the floorboards. Her crisp white apron was now covered in dust and grime and her long black hair was gray with cobwebs. She’d searched the attic and the garden. Both strange places for gloves to hide—but this was Wonderland and strange was commonplace here.

Too commonplace. Every absurd exception in the other realms was an even more absurd rule here. She couldn’t keep up with it. She talked to herself often, while washing dishes, scrubbing floors, weeding vegetables and ironing out rabbit-sized waistcoats. In that, perhaps, she was as mad as the rest of them. Though she, at least, attempted to stick to a script found in the standard dictionary. None of that jabberwocky nonsense for her. Unless forced into it, of course. 

_Oh!_ While scrounging around in the cedar chest in the hall between the master bedroom and the upstairs linen closet, she experienced a flicker of recent memory—of course she did. That’s how Wonderland worked. Wait until you were settled in a place of sense and spin you around again. 

Or maybe her faulty memory was her own personal failing. It certainly wasn’t the only one on the list.

But yes, she’d seen gloves of a similar color and style on the dormouse last time she had the unfortunate pleasure of picking up two bags of tea from the March Hare’s ongoing tea party. Like usual, the dormouse was standing on the table, drinking tea…violet-colored this time and housed in half a clam shell. The clam shell made a poor tea cup and the tea was spilling down its sides by the bucketful. The gloves were filthy and spotted with violet stains.

At the time, Mary Ann had been haggling with the March Hare—a circular, soul-punishing business that took effort and concentration. Thus, the dormouse received only her cursory notice.

“I’ll pay you fifteen pounds for the lot,” the March Hare had stated from his high perch on top of the throne-like chair at the head of the table. He was smoking a pipe and fiddling with a length of braided string.

“No, you misunderstand. I want to buy the tea from _you_.” Maryanne had been in a good mood that day. She had been to the baker’s and found only two penny whistles in the loaf of bread she bought. The average number of penny whistles in any loaf of bread baked in Wonderland was twenty-seven. Made brazen and foolish by the relative normalcy of the purchase, she thought it was a good day to visit the March Hare.

_Ha!_ As they say, the best laid plans of mice and Mary Ann…or something like that. 

“Ah, I see. You’re a wheeler-dealer, aren’t you?” He winked at her. She hated when he winked at her. “Thirty pounds and you can keep the change. But I’m not going any lower.”

“Okay…here’s the deal,” she said plainly, ignoring the nonsense and sticking to business. “If I wanted two bags of tea from you, what would you want from me?”

“Hmm, can’t really say.” He held the pipe between his teeth as he twisted the rope into an old-fashioned noose. 

“Can’t? Or won’t?” Mary Ann tipped her head.

“Again, can’t really say—wait! Wait a minute.” He threw the rope around the nearest tree. It tangled up in the branches. Then he hopped down into the seat of the chair nimbly. He sat up straight and rested his elbow on the table. With a seriousness that didn’t fit his character, he rested his furry chin in his furry hand and looked her straight in the eye. “I want your wooden leg. Yes, ma’am. Give it here.”

“I don’t have a wooden leg,” she reminded him, staring right back at him. If the eyes were the window to the soul, the March Hare’s soul was as deep and dark and utterly vacant as a rabbit hole. Mary Ann did not find this fact surprising.

“I think you do,” he answered lightly.

“Think what you want,” she shrugged. “I have two legs…and neither is made of wood.”

“Are you trying to swindle me, missie?” He flipped the contents of his pipe into the nearest tea cup and banged it on the rim a few times. The simmering tobacco sizzled as it hit the hot liquid in the cup.

“I’m trying to buy two bags of tea from you.” Mary Ann kept her voice level. She wasn’t ready to pack it in yet. Sure, she was on the fence about the tea. But it was the principle of the transaction at this point. “That’s all.”

“From _me_! Two whole bags! Eee!” He squealed and sputtered. “Can’t swing it. Nearly out.”

“Sir, don’t play games with me,” she put her hands on her hips. She adopted a maternal tone—but the maternal tone of a mother who just found her son setting the woods on fire, not the one with the A-student daughter who enters science fairs and has combined dance/violin lessons on Saturday afternoons. “You have more tea on this table than the rest of Wonderland put together.”

“Now you’re just making things up,” the March Hare observed and drank the pipe tobacco tea in one swallow. Mary Ann made a face.

“You know it’s true,” she replied. 

“ _All_ of Wonderland?” He twirled the tea cup around one finger until it flew off, missing the dormouse by mere centimeters before bouncing harmlessly off a nearby tree. “Have you actually visited _all_ of Wonderland?”

“I’ve seen enough of it,” she answered, with understatement heavy enough to squash an elephant.

“Ah, a world traveler! How deliciously exciting!” he clapped his hands together rapidly. The dormouse set his clam shell tea cup down on the table and took a drunken bow. The March Hare gestured at the seat furthest from where Maryanne stood waiting and continued, “Do pull up a chair and tell us of your travels. Here! Have some tea! And some for the road! How much would you like? A bag? Maybe two?”

While the March Hare rambled on and found her two bags of black-and-white checkerboard tea, she watched the dormouse bend down and pick up his clam shell. She remembered thinking that the little creature would do well to soak the gloves in a lemon-based rinse as soon as he finished or risk setting the stain. She remembered thinking that she was fortunate that the gloves would not be hers to clean. 

_No such luck, missie_.

In the White Rabbit’s house, Maryanne sat down at the top of the stairs and put her head in her hands. She didn’t cry. She never cried. Sadness wasn’t the emotion that she wrangled with day after day. It was rage—bitter, red rage that she bathed in until her fingers got all pruney.

So she counted backwards from ten in an attempt to cool off. It was an old trick but a necessary one. _10—damn him, damn him to hell. 9—Did he sell the gloves to the dormouse? 8—Or did he just give them away and forget again? 7—He can go get them himself. 6—I’m a maid, not a slave. 5—Okay, maybe I’m a slave. 4—Indentured servitude is a fuzzy area. 3—Should’ve bargained for a more definite term of years. 2—Got yourself into a real fine mess here, Miss Mary Ann. 1—Your father would be so, so proud. 0—Oh shut up! Stop it! I don’t want to hear it!_

She pulled her hands away from her face briskly and inhaled sharply. Oh, the gloves were the last straw, in a large pile of straws. A haymow filled with golden straw. Yes, she’d use that last straw to burn the White Rabbit’s little house, with all its milk white siding and flamingo pink shutters, to the ground. She would! Burn, burn, burn. Damn the consequences. 

Mary Ann got up from the stairs in a rush and started down. Off to the kitchen to get some matches.

But before she made it five steps down, she heard the pitter-patter of his feet as he came sprinting past the gate and up the front walk. So, in a moment of less melodramatic reflection, she took a detour at the bottom of the stairs and shut herself in the downstairs broom closet instead. It was a good alternative—arson requires a little more deliberation than a quick walk down the stairs.

“Mary _Ann_!” he started calling her name as soon as he entered the yard, emphasizing the last syllable of her name in the most ingratiating, annoying manner possible. She had grown to _hate_ the sound of her own name. She covered her ears to block out the sound. Every time he said it, she swore that a piece of her soul splintered off from all the rest and got lodged in her brain, ever digging and slicing and bleeding inward out.

_Inwards, outwards, forwards, backwards, bottom to the top…_

_Stop!_ In the broom closet, she bit her lip, to keep herself from screaming.

“Mary Ann!” he called again. She heard the front door open. She heard him scurry up the stairs and scuttle through the upper rooms. She heard the shutters of the upstairs bedroom bang open against the side of the house, as the White Rabbit must have leaned out and hollered once again, “Mary _Ann_!”

“Verminous bastard,” she muttered to herself, sitting cross-legged on the broom closet floor, hands firmly planted over her ears, making up curse words and trying very hard to imagine her “happy” place and center herself there. 

And then, of course, the strangest, most absurd and unexpected thing happened. And why shouldn’t it? It was just a typical Wednesday in Wonderland.


	3. Sunshine & Cinder Blocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :)

Working in a hospital is not glamorous. Don’t let Dr. Gregory House and his team of wounded egoists dazzle you with their eclectic case load. It’s much less small pox and syphilis. Much more chicken pox and the common cold. All mixed in with lots of bumps and bruises and bouts with depression. The hours are long and the pay is average. Survival rates dip and rise through no discernible efforts on my part. Life suffers on. Death continues to hover. And that’s not even the worst part. 

I don’t mind it most days. I really don’t. And that’s coming from someone whose personality will never be considered sunny. I have a cynical, misanthropic streak that rivals the best of them. If I stood next to Jonathan Swift on my worst days, I’m afraid he might come off as a community-minded humanitarian. 

Though why I’d ever be standing next to Jonathan Swift is beyond me. First of all, he’s been dead for centuries. But besides that, _Gulliver’s Travels_ is one of my least favorite novels. Talking animals make me incredibly uneasy. No, I don’t know why. Some childhood trauma, I’m sure. Self-reflection is not something I do. Also, the tone turns unnecessarily spiteful towards the end and I don’t know what point Mr. Swift is trying to make. A true misanthrope would never write about it—he’d never take advantage of a gullible audience that has the intellectual prowess of gnats and aphids (myself included), to deride and demean us to our blue-collar faces… Oh, wait. Of course, he would. The smug bastard. 

But I’ve gone off topic. Anyway, the worst thing about working in a hospital is that when you have the flu or—I don’t know, let’s say, just hypothetically—a sprained ankle from a morning run gone horribly awry, they still expect you to show up to work. After all, where better to take care of your aches and pains than at a hospital? The whole situation reeks of irony and wasted effort.

I complained about the inherent unfairness of my chosen profession for the majority of the ride over to the hospital, with my arms folded across my chest and my eyes on the road, knowing full well that I was whining like a child. In the driver’s seat, Archie just smiled and didn’t indulge my ramblings. When I was done ranting, he mentioned that hospitals weren’t all bad. They had nice gadgets there and departments—like radiology, for instance, where I could get an X-ray and establish whether or not I’d actually broken anything during my morning spill onto the sidewalk.

“It’s just a sprain,” I repeated from earlier, flatly, still mad at myself for adding a completely avoidable minor injury to my daily task list.

“All the same,” he commented, as he turned into the circular driveway of the hospital’s main entrance. “Just get an X-ray, Mercy. For me.”

“For you?” I have a suspicious nature, I fully admit it. I meet genuine concern for my welfare with scorn and disbelief. I’ve been trying to work on it, I swear. With strangers, at least. Not with Archie. Never with Archie. Feigning a complete personality change in his presence would be laughable. He reads me like he reads his daily newspaper. 

“Yes, for me,” he replied smartly, ignoring my skepticism, unfazed by any of it. “But more importantly, for you.”

“Fine,” I answered shortly. I would decide on an X-ray later but I’d tell him what he wanted to hear at present. He’d bought me a cup of tea and he’d given me a ride to work this morning so I think the unspoken laws of gratitude would have been offended otherwise. I didn’t need the universe to take any more shots at me today…so best play nice.

Besides, my answer made Dr. Hopper smile. And for whatever reason, Archie’s smiles consistently worked a tonic on my miserable nature—like little pinprick strands of sunshine slipping down through the cracks in the cinder block rafters of a stormy sky. 

He pulled into a parking spot near the front entrance. Then he came around to the passenger door and helped me out. I was hardly an invalid but his steadying hand was appreciated. Add that to the karmic scales as well. 

The sun had come out in full brilliance, with some white fluffy clouds hanging onto the horizon for simple decoration. The morning air was still chilly. Autumn in New England was settling in. There were scarlet red and spun gold leaves strewn on the sidewalk, the first of many to fall from the large white oak and maple trees that flanked the hospital entrance. 

I stood by the car, hovering on one foot, as I pulled my open weave sweater on. Archie waited. I used his old, black umbrella as a makeshift cane as we walked toward the automatic doors leading into the lobby. He left it with me at the entrance saying I could give it back that afternoon when he picked me up and drove me home.

“You don’t have to drive me home,” I told him. “I can probably get someone here to give me a ride”—I tipped my head thoughtfully and added sardonically—“or I could crawl back on all fours. Less chance of falling over that way.”

Another patient smile from the psychiatrist and now it was me reading his mind. _Humor as a defense mechanism, Mercy? You’ve got to work on that. Express not repress._ But all he said was, “It’s no trouble.” 

Then, he nodded towards the hospital interior, “Now go get an X-ray.”

His smile continued and I couldn’t help but smile back, his manner wearing me down and exposing hairline cracks and fissures in the cynic’s soul. I couldn’t sustain the smile for long but it was something.

“Thank you, Archie,” I muttered sincerely, but now staring at my feet. Archie reached out and lifted my chin up with his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to meet his gaze directly. There were those blue eyes again.

“Try to have a good day, okay?” he said, teasing me a little with the added, “For me?”

“For you?” I teased back, raising my eyebrows in mock displeasure. 

“For me,” he agreed and then left me with a promise to come back at around 4:30. I watched him walk down the sidewalk back to his car, answering his little wave goodbye with one of my own. I was gripping the handle of his black umbrella tightly, watching him drive away and thinking some utter nonsense when I suddenly heard a woman’s confident, goading voice behind me. 

“You know what I’ve never understood about your ongoing friendship with Dr. Hopper, Miss Harlow?” she mused at my ear. Her voice was as honey-laced and crisp as her apples. 

I hadn’t heard the hospital doors open or close and she seemed to appear at my side as if by magic—the kind of magic that one associates with dark chocolate and midnight gatherings under a blood red moon. All sunshine through those cinder block rafters were quickly boarded up with the hammer and nails of her mere presence. I made a grim, long-suffering face before turning to her with a plastered, practiced smile.

“And what’s that, Madame Mayor?” I replied, the pain in my ankle lessened when confronted by a real, honest-to-goodness pain in my—

“How it’s lasted so long.” Regina’s smile was a jaguar’s smile, coming upon a small family of peccaries dozing quietly at the riverbank in the rainforest. She chuckled with a husky, hollow half-laugh, “You have absolutely nothing in common—aside from both having terribly old-fashioned names. Parents can be so cruel.”

“Mmhmm,” a non-committal assent came from the back of my throat. I’d rather not deal with the mayor this morning. Strike that. I’d rather not deal with the mayor on any morning. We had never been friends. We certainly didn’t run in the same social circles. We were barely acquaintances and our history might be condensed down to one single moment of…

_Perfect_ , I thought to myself, bitterly. _Now I can’t remember why I hate the woman._

“Well, I mean he’s so friendly and compassionate and you know, fond of helping people,” another chilly smile, vacant of anything approaching real warmth, punctuated the pause. She looked me up and down. “And you’re just— _not_ any of those things.”

Ah, there it is. It was years ago, when she brought that coma patient in—John Doe. I was covering the lobby that night and had her fill out the intake form. I might have mentioned something about being in the right place at the right time, just making conversation, but I’m sure I said it in that ironic tone of mine that’s impossible to shut off. 

Well, she thought I was implying something I wasn’t and turned prickly and defensive, playing the mayor card. I turned prickly back, playing the “I could care less” card. She took offense and called me a cold British bitch with a chip on my shoulder. I didn’t deny it but may have countered that she was a Machiavellian tyrant in a three-piece power suit. Any chance for lasting friendship was subsequently derailed.

It’s too bad really. I suppose we’re similar in our own way, despite the vast difference in our pay grade and our life’s goals. Her ambition surpasses mine 10 to 1. I’m an underachiever by all accounts and she’s been mayor of our small town for as long as I can remember. We’re both women though. There should be some solidarity in that, at least. And what she said wasn’t completely groundless—I admit it freely. 

But tyrants in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. It isn’t nice.

“Here for a check up?” I asked, adding cleverly, “Or did you finally schedule an appointment to have your heart removed completely.”

She smirked wryly, unamused.

“Oh, wait, I’m sorry,” I continued, matching her manner, wry smile for wry smile. “You had that procedure done years ago, didn’t you?”

“Cute, Miss Harlow,” Regina stated with thinly veiled malice. “But you didn’t answer my question. Why _does_ the good doctor put up with your snide, bitter little take on the world? Are you a pet project for him, I wonder, or maybe just a—”

“Sorry, Regina,” I interrupted her with pleasure and used her given name with spiteful impertinence, just _not_ in the mood for any further interrogation. She would twist until it hurt and I didn’t need it this morning. I took a breath of the fresh air around me, smiled towards the pale autumn sun above me and then turned to her, “I _really_ would love to continue this conversation and _let’s_ chat again soon—but you must excuse me. I’m terribly late to work as it is and should report to Dr. Whale immediately.”

We exchanged polite, passive-aggressive smiles.

“Good day, Madame Mayor.” Leaning on Archie’s umbrella, I limped past her without waiting for a reply.


	4. Little Girls & Corn Silk Monsters

_Wonderland_

“Maryanne! There you are!” The White Rabbit exclaimed.

On her knees in the broom closet, Mary Ann had closed her eyes to better focus on the white shores and sapphire sea of the dreamscape she was imagining herself in. It was a warm, breezy afternoon filled with golden sunshine and clouds as soft and white as down feathers. She was standing on the beach, ankle deep in the blue-green surf, wearing a pretty violet sundress, with her long black hair tied back in white ribbons. In the breeze, her hair was coming undone and twirled around her face attractively. 

At least, the man standing on the beach beside her seemed to think so. He was smiling down at her and reaching out his hand to gently tuck a wayward strand behind her ear. He wasn’t the typical male lead of an island paradise scene but Maryanne found that her imagination had a mind of its own when filling in details. He was familiar though. She knew that face, those eyes… 

At the White Rabbit’s words, her dream vanished and she opened her eyes immediately. But she saw no manic, time-obsessed rabbit standing over her. In fact, his voice was much further away. He was still upstairs when he called her name. And directly after, she heard the crash of his fast little feet rushing down the stairs again. She cringed, anticipating the broom closet door flung wide open, her hiding place exposed and the full wrath of her employer forthcoming. 

She waited on pins and needles. Or whatever the Wonderland equivalent would be. Butter knives and spinning tops? Shrub clippers and top hats?

The front door opened. The White Rabbit went out. Maryanne’s cringe lessened and her whole expression turned quizzical. Cautiously, ever so cautiously, she opened the broom closet door by a degree, careful to keep the old hinges quiet, and peered out through the crack between the door and its frame. A large picture window was located directly across the polished wood floor and gave her an unobstructed view of the yard. She was able to see the White Rabbit run out to meet an unfamiliar girl wandering up the cobblestone walk.

“Mary _Ann_!” he exclaimed again, impatiently, “Go get my gloves! I _need_ my gloves! Hurry!” 

The girl blinked as he bellowed and barked at her. “I’m late! Late, late, _late_!”

Mary Ann’s mouth was agape. Oh, now this was too much. She was truly and decidedly offended. The girl coming up the walk was still a child and Mary Ann was a grown woman. Perhaps they were of similar height and their facial features were not completely dissimilar. After all, they both had two eyes, two ears and a nose. Of course, the girl had pale blue eyes and Mary Ann had dark green ones. But you could forgive that as mere oversight. Likewise, the girl wore a white pinafore and Mary Ann wore a white apron. Fine. There was that. However, what could not be forgiven or argued away was the stark fact that the girl in the yard had hair the color of corn silk and sunflower petals.

Mary Ann’s hair was black as coal dust and India ink.

“She doesn’t even look like me!” Mary Ann grumbled to herself, understatedly. Did the White Rabbit not notice the difference? Honestly?

“Oh no, I’m not—” the girl with corn silk hair began, in an accented soprano. The voice, at least, had the cadence of Mary Ann’s, with her own patterns of pronunciation, which were still quite foreign in Wonderland. But the voice was like cut crystal, bright and girlish. Mary Ann’s was far deeper, darker, like a mourning dove compared to a chattering sparrow. Surely he noticed the unfamiliarity of the voice?

“My gloves, Mary Ann! Late, late, late!” He hopped up and down, wildly, shoving his pocket watch in the girl’s face. The chain on the pocket watch swayed violently with the erratic movements of the rabbit. He shooed the girl into the house to find the gloves post _haste_.

Mary Ann stepped back further into her closet refuge, safely out of sight and tried to puzzle this out. She’d been the White Rabbit’s maid for eight long years. Was it possible that he’d never seen her, never heard her, never paid even a moment’s notice to the woman washing his dishes, mopping his floors and laundering his waistcoats in that whole long while? 

Oh, now she really could scream. She moved back to the closet door and watched the scene unfolding with wide-eyed disbelief. The White Rabbit was still in the yard, tapping his foot impatiently. The girl had gone upstairs diligently, on a wild-goose chase for the missing gloves.

Mary Ann left the closet and crept up the stairs silently. She wanted a better look at the girl. She had a suspicion that the girl was not from Wonderland. For one thing, the girl had attempted to contradict the White Rabbit—the natural-born residents of Wonderland had no qualms about accepting the bizarre and uncanny. They thrived on inaccuracy. They would never try to correct a mistaken identity. 

The Duchess, for instance, had not always been a Duchess—Mary Ann still remembered when she was a talking sow, with an affinity for eating daisies, frog legs and apples by the bushel. It happened on a Tuesday. There was a foreign ambassador involved, as well as a false coronation and a crown made out of straw. The queen ordered the ambassador’s head removed, as per usual, but the king interceded on the sow’s behalf. He said they couldn’t execute a member of the royal family. So the sow became the Duchess ( _which might explain both her volatile personality and rather hideous appearance_ , thought Mary Ann) and life continued on. 

It wasn’t very Wonderland-like to question a twist of fate or a sudden name change. And with a simple “No, I’m not—”, the girl did both. Also, she had a rash streak of curiosity—otherwise, she wouldn’t have come up the walk, she wouldn’t have entered the White Rabbit’s house and she wouldn’t be rifling through his bedroom drawers for gloves and other, sundry curiosities. 

She wouldn’t be saying to herself, “Curiouser and curiouser. If I were a white rabbit, where would I keep a pair of gloves.”

That was the dead giveaway. The way the girl said “white rabbit.” Not a capital letter to be found in her syntax. Mary Ann tried not to dwell on the fact that she could now _hear_ capital letters. The stain of Wonderland was seeping into her head, like black ink in the cracks of an old writing desk.

_And why’s a raven like a writing desk?_ thought Mary Ann, before she could stop herself. _What a stupid bloody question._ The girl in the White Rabbit’s bedroom wouldn’t ask it. She’d been born in some faraway realm—where sense and logic had a place in the natural order of the universe. Not here. Wonderland was a strong drink to take. It tasted like absinthe, seaweed, marmalade and castor oil. And Mary Ann had been drinking that strange, heady brew since she was eighteen years old.

_Ah!_ Maybe that was it. Mary Ann had only been a little older than the girl with corn silk hair when she was dragged (or pushed rather) through the looking glass. And age was the grand illusion. Still, she couldn’t forgive the White Rabbit’s inability to distinguish between canary yellow and crow black or not know the face and form of his own and only serving girl—but perhaps, just perhaps, he saw in this girl the girl that Mary Ann had been fifteen years before.

It was Wonderland logic and the fact that Mary Ann understood most of it was telling and terrifying. She’d been here too long. Far too long. Somehow she’d forgotten that she was supposed to escape…and only just remembered it. When did she become so complacent? When did she stop fighting to get out? 

Everything suddenly shifted, as if she had been watching events unfold in a mirror and suddenly saw them in the raw light of day. These thoughts had been simmering in her head, she realized, for the entire morning. Maybe yesterday as well. And the day before that. Her entire existence was, at once, illuminated.

Clarity is an instant sensation. Imagine a patient in an asylum—a good, obedient girl who takes her red, yellow and green pills every morning before breakfast. She grumbles occasionally, of course, since she was born headstrong and independent. It takes years to subdue that sort of thing. But all things considered, she’s a good patient and gives her captors little trouble. Now imagine that the girl suddenly finds herself fully aware of her surroundings and the red, yellow and green pills currently in her mouth, ready to swallow. Clarity strikes. The patient looks up at the orderly and spit the pills back in the old woman’s face. 

Forget burning the house to the ground. It was time for a jail break. 

While Mary Ann had been in the midst of heavy self-discovery on the staircase, the girl with corn silk hair was foolishly indulging her curious nature without restraint. She’d opened a tin of biscuits and like a brazen child, decided to take the frosted delicacies at their words: “Eat me.”

Mary Ann knew too well how that would turn out. She went back downstairs and waited out the girl’s inevitable change of fortune (and size) in the kitchen. She looked around the familiar room, at its pin-stripe wallpaper and pint-sized teacups. There was a basket of fresh fruit on the table and cinnamon muffins baking in the oven. An austere portrait of Mother Rabbit stared at her from above the wood stove, expression grim and disapproving, as if knowing what Mary Ann was about to do and certainly not happy about it. 

Upstairs, the girl with the corn silk hair took a forbidden bite and grew ten sizes. The White Rabbit shrieked and went for help. He found the Dodo coming up the road on an errand that involved a penknife and the four of spades. The Dodo, of course, was only too pleased to be distracted and immediately offered his aid. 

The girl with corn silk hair tried to explain herself. The White Rabbit and the Dodo told her to be quiet and called her a monster. She objected and said she was a girl, not a monster. The Dodo pointed out that her argument would be more solid if her Mary Jane style shoes weren’t the size of boulders. Solutions were discussed, more and more ridiculous.

In the kitchen, Mary Ann searched through the cupboards. She pushed aside bread bowls and saucepans. She made a mess of the silverware drawer and emptied an entire bag of flour onto the kitchen floor. The oven timer dinged but she ignored it. Burnt muffins would be her parting gift to the White Rabbit. In true Wonderland fashion, he’d probably appreciate the gesture.

She finally found what she was looking for—a battered deck of unusual playing cards hidden at the back of a recipe box. The recipe box had her initials on it: _MH_. She slipped the deck of cards into the pocket of her white apron. On her way to the back door, she grabbed a peach from the fruit basket on the kitchen table. 

Taking advantage of the ensuing nonsense in the front yard and the distraction it provided, Mary Ann slipped out the back door and ran away into the woods behind the house.


	5. Cold Hands & Red Roses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while but thought I'd post an update to this one. Read a fabulous mash up of Our Mutual Friend/Once Upon a Time over the weekend ("Secret Heart" by heatherfield) and feeling some feels for this show again...well, first three seasons anyway. In this girl's very biased opinion, OUAT was a total train wreck after that. Thanks for reading! Xo

"Hey!" I protested vehemently, when I suddenly felt cold hands on my ankle. I looked up to ascertain the owner of those cold, cold hands and found Dr. Whale staring down at me with a crooked smile.

"What?" he shrugged, with faux innocence.

I was on break. I'd been sitting with the ankle elevated on one of the brown-and-beige chairs in the downstairs visitor lounge, reading a trashy magazine and drinking a cup of bad coffee from the espresso machine on the first floor. It wasn't much but, all things considered, it had been a fair-to-decent break…until the doctor snuck up on me and touched his clammy, frigid hands to my bare skin.

His touch had all the warmth of a fax machine. Or a dead lizard. Maybe a corpse on a gurney. Not quite a corpse, I suppose, if I'm being fair. That's going too far. There must be some blood running through his veins. He's living, anyway. So strike the corpse analogy. 

In any case, I flinched away on impulse.

"God, your hands are so _damn_ cold," I muttered. The doctor took no offense and likely, in his twisted mind, thought I was flirting with him. I was talking to him; that was usually all it took. His fishhook smile said he was satisfied.

"You like it?" he raised his eyebrows by just a degree.

"No," I answered without elaboration. I've found a simple answer can be most effective when dealing with men who cater to their inflated egos. Less chance of misinterpretation in a flat "no." 

I flipped through magazine pages and tried to immerse myself in Jennifer Lopez and her current choice of lingerie-inspired evening gowns. Whale changed tactics, using the white coat to his advantage.

"I heard you had a bad fall this morning," he explained, in his best physician-to-patient tone.

"Yeah, I did." Again, no elaboration. I nodded briskly and decided to take the quiz on the following page: _How Well Do You Know the Royal Family?_ Well, I mean, as well as the next Brit, really. Tea and crumpets with the Queen every Tuesday at 3? Brunch with Camilla Parker-Bowles every time she's stateside? She comes up to Granny's and we grab a sandwich. Sure we do.

First question: _What's Prince Phillip's favorite color?_

Now, not that I have any right to judge (having adopted West Atlantic spelling habits long ago), I do think they meant to ask what Prince Phillip's _favourite colour_ is. And it's green, for the record. Easy one. 10 points to me.

"Did you get an X-ray?" Dr. Whale asked pointedly. Maybe I was giving him a hard time. It was nice that he was expressing concern. Maybe he'd grown up since last I saw him…you know, yesterday. When he told me he preferred it when I wore my hair down, unpinned, not in the schoolgirl braid I was sporting.

Second question in the magazine quiz: _What is the name of Prince William and Princess Kate's dog?_ That would require a little reflection. And _Princess_ Kate? I think you meant Duchess, darling. Was it _Sparky_? No, not even close. I looked up at Whale.

"Yes, I got an X-ray," I replied simply.

__

_Lupo!_ The dog's name is Lupo. Not sure why I knew that but I'd blame it on English solidarity. 10 more points to me. Moving on…

__

Feeling generous, I added in a less guarded tone, "Just a bad sprain. And it's feeling a lot better than this morning so no need to investigate further…doctor."

__

I shouldn't have added the title. I thought I was being respectful. He thought I was being coy. He brushed one cold, clammy hand against my ankle again and began to massage it in a manner bordering on licentious.

__

"You should really put some ice on this," he mentioned smoothly. "It'll help with the swelling."

__

"Who needs ice when your hands are available?" I pulled my ankle out from under his grasp and grumbled the words, my face devoid of any warmth, invitation, solicitation and any other word that might mean giving a flicker of interest or hope to the womanizing doctor. He was not my type and I, if he ever paid any _real_ attention to me, was certainly not his.

__

Girls who habitually indulge in existential crises are not often the best dating material. 

__

I shooed him away without much success. Then I turned back to the magazine. The quiz was continued on page 72, so I flipped forward several pages, loudly and with no minor amount of repressed anger. Third question: _Why is a raven like a writing desk?_

__

A pause in my head. All the angry little boys and girls painting the walls in red, red rage dropped their brushes and looked up, dumbfounded. _No, that's not_ …

__

"Good one." Whale just rolled with the insult. But I was done talking. I was on my break and I wanted to finish my magazine. And question number three…I looked at it again: _Who is the Queen's favorite Beatle?_

__

I stared at the page for a few moments longer than I meant too. There were no ravens mentioned. No writing desks either. _But it just said_ …so I imagined it. Wonderful. More random nonsense. White gloves, ravens and writing desks.

__

I put the magazine in my lap and covered my face with my hands for a moment, risking much. Dr. Whale was still hovering and my current state might have encouraged an inappropriate degree of comforting on his part.

__

But finally, some luck. For the first time that morning and perhaps for the first time that week, I finally caught a break, as a tall, long-legged blond woman walked into the lobby with no obvious ailment. I could diagnose her with hypochondria from where I was sitting. But Dr. Whale would require a more in-depth interview. Of course he would. Sufficiently distracted, he left me without another word.

__

When I next looked up, he was at the blond woman's side. I shook my head, almost imperceptibly, vindicated. I took a deep breath and decided not to finish the quiz. I didn't know the Queen's favorite Beatle anyway. Though it was probably Paul. Isn't he everyone's favorite?

__

My break was nearly over so I set the magazine aside and took my foot off the brown-and-beige chair, cringing. The sharp pain of this morning was now more of a dull ache but it still hurt. I got to my feet gingerly, like an old woman. As I stood, I reached for my tepid cup of coffee. I almost took a drink but thought better of it. As I walked out of the visitor's lounge, I threw the coffee in the nearest trash can.

__

Across the floor, a nurse from the psychiatric ward emerged from the door leading to the hospital basement. It was a little unusual. There wasn't anything down there but worn out machines and old files. At least, I thought that was all that was down there. To be honest, I couldn't remember ever visiting the basement. And here was Nurse Ratched (sorry, I don't know her name—it's a respectably-sized hospital and I'm not exactly on the co-worker potluck committee)…but here she was, coming up from the basement with a single, red rose in her hand.

__

Well, maybe she was doing some gardening down there. Or better yet, carrying on some illicit affair. I didn't blame her. Anything to get through the day.

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I headed to rounds and thought no more about it.

__


End file.
